Anthony Patruno is a healthcare professional, committed volunteer in the Society’s services and member of St Thomas Aquinas Conference Bowral, who slept out for the first time this August. He is also father of Dominic Patruno, a highly regarded Case Worker and leader for Vinnies Services in the inner city. 

Anthony well-exceeded his fundraising target at the Southern Highlands Winter Sleepout, raising $2,153 of the nearly $15,000 raised for local Conference works, and gained a greater understanding of the hardships of rough sleeping. 

“The sleepout was a great success in terms of fundraising though it was not much of a ‘sleepout’,” Anthony commented. “Instead, it was a night of trying to sleep but mainly looking at my watch and counting down the hours to sunrise!” 

Friday 29 August was a bitterly cold night with strong winds and moisture at St Thomas Aquinas Primary School Bowral.  

Checking his phone at 4am, Anthony noticed the temperature was 1 degree though the weather app indicated it “felt like -8 degrees due to the wind chill”.  

Anthony’s three woollen layers, plus a ski jacket and a beany “pulled down over my entire face” inside a sleeping bag were little match for the inhospitable conditions outside.  

It was eye-opening for Anthony to realise the great discomfort caused by small practicalities. 

“My drama for the night was that my sleeping bag zipper kept breaking and it wouldn’t stay zipped up,” he recalled. Sleeping on one of the picnic tables in the school’s covered eating area avoided wet ground from the rainy night. “But boy those tables are hard!” 

“I’ve always had an appreciation of having a home and family but appreciate these things all the more now. All the while I was out there, I was okay, despite the discomfort because I knew it was just for one night,” he said. 

“For too many people, it is not for one night and there is no certainty of when the awful cold, lonely, empty and vulnerable nights will end.” 

He reflected that the emotional and psychological stresses would likely be even harder for people sleeping rough than the physical hardships.  

Will Anthony do it again? “Absolutely,” and will also work on recruiting another of his sons to join him. “I’ll try to persuade my 14-year-old to be there.” 

Great work, Anthony! Thank you to everyone who supported him and the Southern Highlands Community Sleepout.